


Feet on the Dash

by veterization



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange, because to the random unknowing passerby they're just two friends, maybe even family members, taking a road trip in the middle of a sweaty, endless June, but Peter's an ex-serial killer werewolf and Stiles is a little puny human who's eating all the chips like Peter won't rip his throat out if he eats the whole bag without sharing. The road trip part, however, is true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feet on the Dash

**Author's Note:**

> This story is lacking all the delicious aggression and dub-con that most Peter/Stiles do are so rich in, but I heard the Death Cab For Cutie song "Passenger Seat" and instantly thought of this plot where Peter and Stiles go on a road trip and couldn't let it go. This ship takes you as its prisoner.
> 
> Even though it's incredibly unrealistic that Stiles and Peter ever take a road trip, I still hope everybody enjoys. (◕‿◕✿)

When Stiles tries to make sense of it, none of it adds up. Maybe he needs to get away. Maybe he needs a release from being caged into a tiny town overstuffed with a lot of crazy that seemed to swallow him whole every day, and maybe a long stretch of hot road and blurred landscapes is exactly what he needs. God only knows why Peter is here.

It's strange, because to the random unknowing passerby they're just two friends, maybe even family members, taking a road trip in the middle of a sweaty, endless June, but Peter's an ex-serial killer werewolf and Stiles is a little puny human who's eating all the chips like Peter won't rip his throat out if he eats the whole bag without sharing. The road trip part, however, is true.  
  
Even stranger than that is that neither of them are talking about it. The murders, the way Peter physically assaulted Stiles against the hood of his car in that creepy parking garage, the way Stiles was responsible for setting him on fire the second time in one lifetime. It's knowledge they both know is settling under their skins but mutually decide to keep quiet for the sake of keeping the peace, and Stiles thinks maybe this is what letting go of grudges feels like. It's oddly refreshing. The whole thing is refreshing, Stiles' knee on the dash and the windows cracked to let the summer aromas of grass and tangible heat waft into the stuffy car. Never mind the fact that Stiles is letting a werewolf drive his car to God knows where.  
  
They just drive, soft music on the radio while Stiles' mouth turns orange from Cheetos. Maybe Peter really has changed. Maybe reincarnation does wonders for some people like yoga retreats do for others.  
  
Stiles has no idea where they are, and he supposes that might be part of the thrill, not that it isn't thrilling enough that he's secluded in a Jeep with a bloodthirsty creature of the moon. He saw a sign earlier when he was letting his eyes droop, something like "Fullerton" and "Santa Ana," but his brain wasn't really processing, too busy dozing against the cool glass of the passenger window. His dad knows he needs a trip, something to just get away and rebel before school's over, but he thinks he's alone. Stiles wouldn't know how to explain a thirty-something grown man road tripping with him anyway.  
  
\--  
  
The best part about traveling is the food. All of it's greasy and none of it tastes like home even if all the Burger Kings have the same layout and the same grumpy cashier who's probably spitting into the fryer during break time. There's something about eating a flat, sad little hamburger and mangling his straw with his teeth when he's sitting in a diner in a town he doesn't even know how to pronounce the name of let alone point to on a map.  
  
They're sitting in a dinky booth poorly nailed to the floor next to a sticky table like a myriad of children have smeared ice cream on the counter over the years, Peter digging into a hamburger like this is where his true animal side comes out for the world to see. Stiles has seen the man with claws and fur and watching him attack his happy meal is mildly more terrifying. Stiles is nursing a chocolate milkshake next to him while he's stealing Peter's onion rings, and he knows nothing gets past those werewolf senses so maybe Peter's actually all right with sharing or merely finds Stiles' thievery endearing.  
  
Over by the counter, a tourist family of seven all wearing the same baby blue shirt broadcasting their family vacation is steamrolling into the place and ordering everything on the menu. Stiles remembers taking family vacations when he was younger, barely remembers, but he does, snippets like his mother guiding him around by the hand and his father asking strangers to take pictures of them together. Stiles went through a phase where he never understood the concept of smiling for photographs, only staring interrogatively at the lens, and his mother found it hilarious, tickling his sides to get him to giggle before the flash went off.  
  
"What happens when you die?" Stiles asks Peter, who takes a moment to chew through a truly challenging hamburger the size of his whole face, tomatoes oozing out the sides while he considers the question.  
  
"Nothing," he says simply, and Stiles knows Peter has no reason for lying. It scares him only a little that Peter can actually answer this question, the ones that are supposedly unanswerable, more so reminding him exactly how adventurous his life has become even if he's one step closer every day to a game over screen just because he has a friend that gets himself into trouble and an insatiable curiosity.  
  
"Nothing, huh?" Stiles murmurs, and guesses all that malarkey about white lights and a heavenly voice are the things of legend.  
  
"And if you're lucky," Peter adds with a shit-eating grin, "then you come back to life."  
  
Peter winks around another bite, chasing melting cheese with his tongue, and Stiles feels very much like laughing.  
  
\--  
  
Stiles wonders why Peter's here, but sometimes, when he's breathing in the country air and trying fruitlessly to grab a visual hold of the blurry houses zooming by, he gets why. There is no Trauma for Beginners class and nobody teaches you how to cope when you get older. Stiles, he's scared of dying and of everybody else dying, and maybe Peter is too. He's already experienced both, after all.  
  
Sometimes he looks over at Peter when he's driving and he sees glimpses of somebody unguarded and naked, somebody he might've been before the fires. He imagines how the Hales were beforehand, cautious but carefree, perfectly content to live away from the town gossipmongers and the bustling of human curiosity. Stiles likes to imagine Peter was a wicked prankster. He has that ghost of a sly glow in his eyes.  
  
"How were things before the fire?" Stiles asks one afternoon. It's amazing how effortlessly the days blur together with nothing but a faded car clock and an endless line of trees and street signs surrounding him. "What were you, y'know, like?"  
  
"Which fire?"  
  
Peter's actually smiling, a dry grin, like he was waiting for Stiles to ask, and Stiles thinks about the time he burned his hand on a candle at his mother's funeral service by accident. The skin was red and sour for weeks. It hurt.  
  
"The last one."  
  
"Well," Peter says, and Stiles knows he'll stop him if he asks too many questions. "I didn't have any facial hair."  
  
Peter meets his gaze over the console, his smile real this time. Stiles supposes it's things like this, witty quips and a startling bluntness that makes Stiles like being in a car with this guy for twenty-four hours a day. He would've thought that it was going to end badly, perhaps only agreeing because he wanted to get out no matter who with, but their odd little arrangement works. Maybe it's because Stiles doesn't see the murder in this guy anymore, doesn't see the urge for blood under the Alpha red eyes, doesn't feel the same thrum of terror when he sees his face. Or maybe Stiles is just a sucker for bad ideas.  
  
He cracks a window and hears the rush of wind push in, shoving past the hot air trapped in the car that has Stiles in his t-shirt and his sweatshirt crumpled in the backseat. He looks through the window just in time to see a red barn whiz past. He wonders who lives there, or who ever lived there, or how they ever did so far away from society or even a grocery store. He imagines a life where his backyard doesn't bump into someone else's fence but rather stretches on for miles with nothing but a tire swing and a muddy little pond. Right now, with school and werewolves and Lydia awaiting him back home, the idea sounds like the ultimate release, the kind he knows Peter wants too since what awaits him isn't much better than Stiles' reality, like a pack that doesn't trust him and a burnt shell of a home.  
  
A rickety, taupe SUV with at least ten bumper stickers passes them. Stiles taps Peter's wrist and smiles.  
  
"License plate game?" he asks, and Peter takes on his challenge.  
  
Peter sucks at the license plate game. Stiles thinks it's funny.  
  
\--  
  
Their snacks run dry a few days in, nothing but crumbs of salt left in the chip bags and warm gulps of water left sitting in the cup holders. The convenience store they decide to stop at doesn't look like it's seen a mop in decades, let alone actual customers, and the whole place reeks strongly of rotting chili poorly veiled with Febreze.  
  
The place has souvenir magnets and Slim Jims, though, so Stiles fills his arms with junk food and meets Peter by the cashier after a quick bathroom break.  
  
"Okay, the bathrooms?" Stiles hisses conspiratorially over by the noisy hum of the refrigerated beers. "Are not actually bathrooms. They're just glorified buckets in a lockable room."  
  
"Should we leave a complaint with the cashier?" Peter murmurs while he stacks pretzels into his grip. The cashier, a beefy guy who looks like he has more tattoos than he has words in his vocabulary, is not exactly somebody he's looking forward to bellyaching to about the state of the sanitation of the restroom. Peter smoothly steps into the next aisle where a poor selection of nasal sprays and themed bandages meets them.  
  
"Um, no," Stiles sneaks another look at the man, eyeing the two of them like they're invading on his personal alone time with his merchandise, and shakes his head. "He looks like he'd like to eat us both for lunch."  
  
Peter smirks and suddenly there's a hand on the small of his back, a slight, protective pressure that feels almost fatherly with the exception of the finger that's brushing against the waistband of his jeans.  
  
"You realize I'd eat him first, right?" Peter says, giving Stiles a look that's somehow simultaneously impish and disappointed that Stiles is doubting his ability to guard either of them from harm. Sometimes, miraculously, Stiles forgets who he's traveling with.  
  
"Yeah, what was I think—" Stiles' sarcasm gives way for more important matters when he zeroes in on the box in Peter's hand that he plucks from the shelf to investigate. " _Condoms?_ Dear god, why?"  
  
"You don't have any," Peter shrugs, swapping the box he's holding out for another, larger one. "I would've thought that you would've gotten a talk by now about being safe about sex, Stiles. And having condoms in your car is definitely a way to be safe."  
  
He fixes him with an arched eyebrow that doesn't feel at all like the type of grim glare that all sex-ed teachers are known for having to intimidate their students into buying condoms and avoiding sex, much more suggestive with a hint of—  
  
"Do you have to be so creepy _all the time_ —"  
  
But Peter's already at the cashier laying down his bag of jumbo sized pretzels and lifetime supply of condoms, which Stiles will not look at because apparently he has the sexual maturity of a seven-year-old, and Stiles hustles on over there to add his own armful of snacks to the pile.  
  
Stiles looks fixedly at the ceiling when the cashier rings up the condoms, only looking horizontally at the world again when they leave with their bags, and tries his hardest not to think what the implications are of Peter Hale buying him condoms when he catches the keys to his Jeep, settles in the driver's side, and watches Peter tuck them into the glove compartment.  
  
\--  
  
The thing about this road trip that really gets Stiles is that he knows that as well as Peter and him seem to get along when it's nothing but a tinny radio and the odd horse grazing in a field streaking by, it won't last when they get back to reality. If they were back in Beacon Hills with Derek's pack and Scott surrounding them, Stiles would side with everybody else and call the man a freak of nature. He knows what he's capable of, things that shouldn't be easily forgiven, things like murder and torture. Stiles wonders if Kate Argent doing it to him first justifies any of it. The whole thing is grey matter.  
  
Maybe Peter knows too, but the peace will be broken when they go home. Maybe the hustle of the town will return them back to being shaky enemies who happen to fight on the same side, back to distrusting each other, back to expecting the worst. When Stiles thinks of it that way, he never wants to leave this stuffy old Jeep again.  
  
He never thought he'd see it this way, but Peter makes things simple.  
  
\--  
  
They sleep in the backseat and in the passenger seat, which folds back a grand five inches. Hotels are too sleazy of a thought for Stiles to comprehend, the idea of stopping at a motel that smells of cigars and chlorine with Peter in tow much too seedy. Things are safe in the car, a confined space that keeps both their proverbial demons out of sight and out of mind, and Stiles likes sleeping tucked into the parking lot of a rest stop or in the nook of a forest trail even if the backseat makes his spine ache and his feet can't stretch out all the way. Peter always sleeps in the passenger seat, reclined only a smidgen but still enough to lure him to sleep. Oddly enough, driving all day is exhausting, like there's something in the air that's cleansing his very bones and refreshing him, urging him to sleep off whatever burdens he keeps hidden under his shoulders.  
  
Peter always sleeps with even breaths, a tranquil face that the moonlight illuminates like the soft glow of a desk lamp. Watching him motivates Stiles to fall into slumber too, like watching the peace that sits alive and well under the roar of the wolf is the world's way of balancing out the bad and the good.  
  
He pillows his head under his sweatshirt and soaks in the sound of the crickets, nature looming over his car in swaying trees and grasshoppers napping on the roof. He feels like he's five-years-old and camping again, closer to nature than he ever feels amid the looming buildings of the city, and even the way the car gets sticky with the night's heat isn't enough to keep him from being dead to the world for at least eight hours. Everything is moist and warm like standing behind the gust of a truck's exhaust pipe, the random breeze that slips in from the cracked window like gulping down iced tea in the most sweltering hour of a sunny July day.  
  
He wakes up like a pretzel, folded awkwardly into the back seat with his t-shirt riding up his chest and his calves burning from the cumbersome position he's held all night, but it hurts in the best of ways. It makes Stiles feel rugged and alive when his muscles are sore the next morning and Peter's cranking the seat back upright before clambering over to the driver's side to ride over to the nearest McDonalds for a breakfast so oily it'll throw both of them into early graves.  
  
\--  
  
Days into their trek, Stiles still doesn't know where they're going. There are no maps and no GPS voices directing them to take a certain turn or speed off a highway ramp. Now and again Peter changes highways just for the hell of it, like fate will end up bringing them somewhere in the end anyway. Stiles likes to amuse himself that one morning he'll wake up and they'll be parked outside the Grand Canyon, or grazing the beach where college kids are throwing volleyballs and doing shots in the sand. Stiles goes straight when he's driving because the street lets him. It's amazing how long the roads are, how they stretch and roll with the hills for miles, nothing but black asphalt plus faded yellow lines reaching the horizon.  
  
The front window is huge, like what's to come is what's worth focusing on, and the rear-view mirror is so small because what he's leaving behind isn't nearly as special or worthy of his attention. He barely thinks about home or the video games sitting in his Xbox, just the occasional rumination over if his father is eating right or if the station is overworking him. He can expect things to be complicated at home, whether it be with his father's work, or Scott having waded knee dip in shit, or Derek attracting trouble, as usual. Stiles would've thought that he would've been used to it, like mayhem is just part of his daily routine, but he's not. Maybe he's not cut out for the Batman and Robin life, and maybe he should've learned that earlier.  
  
He and Peter don't talk too much about the serious things, like _what was the coma like_ or _where's your mom, Stiles_ , but they still seem to understand each other. Peter knows things about Stiles that even his father doesn't, like the fact that Stiles runs with wolves in his free time and escaped the Reaper that was narrowly close to knocking on his door multiple times in the last year. They talk about other things, easy things, things that don't worsen the burden of what reality has in store for them.  
  
" _An American Werewolf in London_ ," Stiles says with certainty. Peter snorts and sighs heavily next to him like he expected better, halfway through a box of crackers that Stiles bought exclusively for himself.  
  
" _The Wolf Man_ ," Peter refutes. "It's a classic."  
  
"And which one is more accurate?"  
  
Peter shoots him a critical look after popping another cracker into his mouth. "Why, Stiles. You're acting like werewolves are real."  
  
"Amazing what wonders resurrection did for your sense of humor," Stiles says dryly as he pilfers a cracker from the nearly empty box.  
  
"Maybe you just bring out the best in me, Stiles," Peter murmurs, looking highly amused, and Stiles wonders how on earth he went from fearing his life around this guy to bantering like they're lifelong friends.  
  
It's definitely strange, but he decides now is not the time to investigate.  
  
\--  
  
The weirdest part of the whole journey is definitely the impromptu trip to Disneyland.  
  
They notice they're in Anaheim when they stop for drive-through hot dogs and see a handful of signs advertising "Anaheim's most coveted theme park: the happiest place on earth" hanging crookedly off the side of the road. Stiles mentions as an offhand joke that Peter would look good with mouse ears and the next day they're there, a road with much more traffic than they've experienced all week, two toll booths, and a parking lot clogged to full capacity with shrieking children in Disney character costumes and their weary parents.  
  
Stiles has never been to Disney before, just the shitty town fair that rolls in late summer and features a few rickety Ferris wheels and a wooden roller coaster that is basically just fifteen ways to crack your neck in under thirty seconds, and he certainly never imagined he'd go with Peter. It's such an unexpected detour that Stiles can't help but laugh at how ludicrous the situation is when they're stuffed on a tram while young children screech at the top of their lungs to the dismay of their parents and continuously stumble over Peter's shoes.  
  
"How badly do you want to rip those kids' throats out?" Stiles whispers over the noisy hum of the tram. As much as he doesn't advocate the public mauling of youngsters, he's pretty sure these little terrors will only grow into the full potential of their iniquity after puberty eggs them on.  
  
"Terribly," Peter says back, eyes hardly amused as they flash a theatrical supernatural blue that Stiles is pretty sure is for show. He kicks him in the shin and feels only slightly bad about it.  
  
When they finally make it past the ticket booth, it feels like the entire population of Russia plus an army of strollers meet them in the park, nobody above pushing and kicking. Peter looks like he's about to go on his second killing spree so Stiles jabs his elbow into his ribs. Funny how back in winter when Stiles was sweating over the thought of being torn to mangled shreds on that lacrosse field courtesy of Peter, he never would've even considered the idea of digging his elbow into his stomach and waiting for the retaliation.  
  
"Reincarnation is such a good look on you," Stiles drawls after a toddler weaves through his legs and nearly causes him to tumble into the decorative fountain. "I'd hate for you to waste your new life in prison because you ate a two-year-old."  
  
"Why would I eat a two-year-old," Peter says mildly, like they're talking about tea, "when the teenagers have much more meat?"  
  
Suddenly there's a hand squeezing his waist, five slender fingers digging past the fabric and pinching the skin, and Stiles barely has time to react before Peter's pulling away and snorting into his fist like making Stiles nervous is his favorite new past time.  
  
Stiles gets back at him by forcing him to ride Splash Mountain.  
  
It's literally the only ride they make it through, Peter's short temper and Stiles' hunger cutting their day short, but the best part is the fact that nobody's taking pictures. There's not a single memento of the two of them with cheesy grins with Cinderella's castle glimmering behind them, not a single commemorative photograph taken by a friendly elderly woman of the two of them, and Stiles likes that. He sees plenty of tourists with cameras looped around their necks stopping every other second to snap shots of restaurants and goofy family members, and Stiles thinks the world barely ever stops looking through lenses to see the unfiltered rawness of it all. He soaks it in, literally soaks until his t-shirt is damp with sweat courtesy of a blistering afternoon sun and too much body heat, and they leave before the fireworks to get a head start on traffic.  
  
Stiles misses the quiet stretches of roads, so Peter gets him there.  
  
When they're back on the tranquil road, not a single soccer mom van in sight, Stiles rehashing the way Peter's face contorted when their boat tipped down the plummet of Splash Mountain—where were his werewolf powers now—he briefly wonders what Scott's doing, or Lydia, or Derek, and if they're as relaxed as Stiles is right now lounging on the passenger seat of his Jeep with aching feet and a badly tuned radio keeping his ears company.  
  
\--  
  
The funny thing about driving is that it teaches you things about people you never knew before, things like how much aggression lurks under seemingly innocuous skin and how much of a stickler for the rules people really are. Scott's a clumsy driver who can't handle a stick shift and Jackson's a pompous driver who pretends he owns the road, just like their personalities, and Peter just so happens to handle a car like a mechanical bull—at full power, and constantly demanding more challenges.  
  
With challenges, Stiles means speed limits, trivial things clearly under Peter's concern as he makes it his mission to defy every single number if only to revel in the fact that he's never pulled over. Stiles will personally cut out his kneecaps while he's sleeping if he puts any marks on his Jeep's record. Peter loves the acceleration lanes and drives over eighty miles even when the Jeep groans and thunders down the road like a rogue ping pong ball, noises of protest which always result in Stiles demanding he pull the car over so Stiles can treat his car right if only to make sure they won't be hitchhiking back to Beacon Hills with his trustworthy vehicle left in the dust as a historical landmark.  
  
Stiles is kind of a crazy driver too, but differently. He's erratic and jumpy, just like he is without his ADD medication, braking at inopportune moments to avoid woodland creatures scampering across the street and swerving off the road when there's either an urgency or a funny face being pulled in the passenger seat. He thinks maybe he uses the Jeep as his super power, a metal cage that acts like armor to his otherwise vulnerable flesh, and he and Peter fit together in that sense. Combining their driving styles would make for the most lethally inventive race car driver on the planet.  
  
The engine gives out at one point, which Stiles suffers only a mild panic attack through while Peter cracks open the hood and stares at the parts. Stiles knows his ups and downs with car mechanics, but when Peter has to wave smoke away from the engine just like in what happens in the movies right before the car commits suicide, he spends the next five minutes cradling his head between his knees on the side of the road praying that Peter knows something about cars.  
  
Turns out, he does. He turns into MacGyver in under two seconds and sticks his arm into the hood like he's performing open heart surgery, and next thing he knows the car is rumbling to a start like it was only taking a slightly dysfunctional nap and Stiles shoots back to his feet.  
  
Peter looks smug and amused by the time Stiles realizes that they won't be stranded on the side of the road and that Peter's hidden mechanical skills are to thank. It makes him think, nine miles and no malfunctions later, what other skills Peter secretly has that he wouldn't have expected out of him because all he ever saw him be good at is being a monster. Maybe he makes a mean waffle, or maybe he's computer savvy, or maybe he's an avid book reader. Stiles had never stopped to consider that Peter does human things on his own time, like order pizza delivery or do karaoke. The funny thing is that Peter was definitely a person before he was the monster, a person with a job and a family and a life, all things that were taken from him with the fire. He wonder how much of that original Peter was salvageable after the coma, how much of him was pieced back together to create the man next to him now.  
  
"You were right, by the way," Peter says another thirteen miles later. "She does grind in second."  
  
\--  
  
A full moon peeks into the window one night against the black night, a shining orb that lights the way of the road alongside the yellow headlights. Stiles wonders how Derek's pack is doing at home, if Scott is controlling himself and if Beacon Hills is safe tonight. He hopes his father has the night off.  
  
"So is your blood lust at its peak?" Stiles asks cheekily from where he's watching the moon loom over the trees from the window. Peter snorts elegantly.  
  
"Not exactly," Peter says, and sneaks a look at him that looks obscenely hungry. "But I do have other things at their peak."  
  
Stiles doesn't know whether to laugh or slap him over the head, and no, he doesn't think about the condoms that are sitting untouched in the glove box at all. Not at all.  
  
\--  
  
Stiles makes the spontaneous decision to swerve off the beaten path one day when he thinks they've left California. He can't be sure, but the trees start changing shape and the road gets bumpier, like they've traveled to a different land. He should be worried, being this far away from home with Peter, but he supposes that just adds to the risk that comes with aimless road tripping.  
  
He knows they have to go home eventually, face the reality that is school and homework and werewolf drama, but not yet. So they keep stopping at gas pumps and filling up and driving further. He wonders if at home, anybody's made connections yet that Stiles and Peter are both gone. Derek will have gotten suspicious first, trusting his uncle as far as much as he can outrun him, and will have told Scott and made it their mission to figure out if the connection is sound. If they've figured it out, Stiles knows Scott won't understand. He doesn't understand it fully either.  
  
"Why are you here, Peter?" Stiles asks that night. They're sitting against the hood of the car looking out over a murky lake. Stiles had hoped that it was the ocean when he pulled up to the shimmering water, but he sees the muddy bank of marshy land far in the distance. It's an uncommonly chilly night, like the water is cooling the air, and it makes Stiles feels like they've spent their whole summer in a car and fall has crept up on them next to Old Man Time even if it's still June or July.  
  
"The food is superb," Peter drawls. Stiles stares at him, and amazingly enough, it motivates the truth out of him. "I like you, Stiles."  
  
The words are familiar, the night of the parking garage echoing in his ears. If somebody had told him a year ago that he'd be road tripping with a werewolf who tried to kill him on multiple occasions, he'd question their mental health. He still doesn't get it himself.  
  
"You're not here to convince me to let Derek turn me, are you?"  
  
Peter shrugs noncommittally, readjusting against the front bumper of the Jeep that croaks in protest at the movement. Stiles wonders how old he is, and if the coma added more wrinkles than it should have. "Not my original plan."  
  
"So it's really just the food, then?" Stiles smirks, fiddling with the moist grass under his legs. It's dampening his pants, but he doesn't want to readjust. Instead he grabs a handful of dirt and tosses it into the lake, where it ripples through the flat line of water and sinks to the ground.  
  
"The company," Peter says slowly, "is pretty good too."  
  
Suddenly there's a hand on his knee, a light touch that's not even close to the way the same fingers slammed him onto a car a few months ago. It's like a ghost's hand, a few brushes that Stiles feels like electricity. The night is cold and Stiles' body is too, but Peter's palm is a warm patch through his jeans. He wonders if this is what this whole trip has been leading too, if this is why Stiles said yes, if this is why Stiles doesn't want to go home. He doesn't move his leg.  
  
"You know, Stiles," Peter adds, "I'm _really_ not a fan of the loveable geeky-boy-gets-the-hot-girl trope."  
  
Stiles looks at him, Peter's eyes shining in the light, and feels something run through him like want. It's scary, considering it's a sensation he always associated with red hair and a perky chest, and here he is feeling it thrum through his veins for the grown man in front of him. Peter looks very much like he'd like to lean in and suck at the flushed spot on Stiles' neck, and Stiles wants him to, but the night air is making him woozy and he's not falling asleep on this dirty ground with the mosquitoes nesting in his pants tomorrow.  
  
So he gets up, pretends he doesn't hear Peter's heavy sigh as his hand slips off his thigh, and climbs into the car again.  
  
\--

What he's trying to avoid, though, it's inevitable. There's something about Peter that isn't black and white, good or bad, just pure in between that Stiles wants to feel with his hands. In high school, no matter what the soap operas say, it's easy. You find a girlfriend by your locker and you take her to the movies and then to the homecoming dance. Her friends gossip about you in the bathroom and you make out by the vending machines in passing period. With Peter, it's dangerous. Whatever it is, it doesn't have a clear label. It'd be savage and refreshing and aggressive, the kind of thing he'd never feel again, and he knows he's running out of time. This thing they're tossing back and forth on the road, it won't survive in the real world, too vulnerable to others' words and the responsibilities of life to stay alive.  
  
He thinks about what must be wrong with him to want Peter how he does, to think about the feeling of his hand on his leg, how maybe all this time away from his home has made him susceptible to bad ideas and masochism, but then he sees Peter roll his eyes at one of Stiles' jokes and sit cross-legged in the passenger seat with socks pooled at his ankles, _socks_ , and Stiles doesn't see any hint of the monster anymore.  
  
"Do you think there's something wrong with me?" Stiles asks one day, long after his duffel bag of laundry has run dry and he's wearing his t-shirt inside out just to feel fresh fabric against his skin. He knows things like washing machines and summer homework are calling him. He tries to ignore the calls as long as possible, focusing on the smell of evergreen wafting through the window and how the radio overheats every two hours and has to be turned off. The silences aren't awkward.  
  
"Of course there is," Peter says right away. "You're on a road trip with a middle-aged werewolf."  
  
Stiles considers it, oddly entertained with his own life when it's laid out in front of him in such a clear summary.  
  
"My best friend also happens to be a werewolf. And his friend the Alpha has turned half the town into werewolves too. And my dad doesn't know about any of it," Stiles wants to laugh at the hilarity of it all and wonders if Peter would join in. "Maybe the question should have been if there's something wrong with my life."  
  
"Of course there is," Peter says again, and Stiles is going to miss this.  
  
\--  
  
Stiles kisses Peter when he notices that they've turned around, a familiar scratched sign catching his eye that he knows he's seen before. He doesn't know how long it'll take for them to get home, or if that's where Peter's intended on heading, but he feels the idea of this summer ending like a bus ramming into his ribs and acts on pure instinct.  
  
He knows from past experience that his instinct isn't to be trusted, but he doesn't stop to filter before he grabs Peter by the hair and kisses him straight on the mouth. The funny part is that the kiss isn't even the bad idea, it's the kissing while driving that really isn't a great combination.  
  
Peter slams on the brakes and the milk truck behind them honks indignantly before swerving in front of them. Stiles feels the car jolt from seventy miles an hour to what feels like a shocking zero, and next thing he knows he's being knocked into the window and Peter's staring at him like he's never seen anything like him before. The kiss sucked.  
  
"That sucked," Stiles proclaims, and he feels a sting in his lip where he knows his teeth dug in when the brake startled him. Peter hasn't looked at the road in over ten seconds. It's a miracle they're still alive.  
  
"The next one won't," Peter says after a terrifying moment of speechlessness where Stiles stares in awe at the way Peter's lips are slightly redder when he licks them.  
  
It sounds like it could be either a threat or a promise. Stiles thinks it's both.  
  
\--  
  
The night seems hotter, somehow, when they finally park to catch a few winks of sleep. Stiles lays in the backseat staring at the poor condition of the upholstery on the ceiling with the sound of his own pulse beating against his eardrums. He knows Peter hears it too, knows that he gets what the frantic palpitations of Stiles' heart mean and can smell the lingering promise of arousal in the air. He hears a breath, a soft exhale, from the front seat and Stiles waits for something, anything, to happen. As badly as he doesn't want to be a high school cliche and have sex in the trunk and then smoke a joint under the stars, he wants Peter to climb back here. God, he wants Peter to climb back here.  
  
"Your heartbeat," Peter finally comments, and the words sound loud and piercing through the crisp silence of the night air. He sounds oddly breathless. "You're going to have a stroke."  
  
"It's your fault," Stiles grits out. He feels like he's about to boil here in this stuffy backseat in his own skin, and he hears Peter's breath hitch in his throat.  
  
"Stiles, if I go back there," Peter warns, "you know I won't let you back out."  
  
"That's a lot of talk," Stiles' hands scrape down his own thighs where his own pants feel sticky on his legs. "I can see where Derek gets his empty threats from."  
  
There's a growl and suddenly Peter's on top of him, the front seat abandoned as he settles onto his hips and wastes no time grinding down into Stiles' stirring dick. Stiles feels his hormones come to life like someone's flicked a switch and now he's one hundred percent aware of every touch, every ragged movement of Peter's hips as he fists at Stiles' t-shirt.  
  
"You're such a tease," Peter growls as he all but tears Stiles' shirt away and Stiles fights to keep up with the ride which he actually willingly agreed to participating in. Oh, he's definitely a masochist.  
  
"I'm the tease?" Stiles squeaks. "You bought _condoms_. Oh god, you _planned_ this, didn't you." There's a hot line of overheated flesh that's pressed flush against his body and there's _so many clothes_ in the way between Stiles and Peter's dick that Stiles isn't even going to dwell on the fact that Peter was scheming this ever since that day in the sleazy convenient store.  
  
"Not exactly," Peter denies. "But you definitely fulfilled all my expectations by making them necessary."  
  
Stiles' foot jams into the window and this really isn't nearly as spacious as he'd like it to be. It's dark, only a handful of rays of moonlight shining through the window, and all Stiles wants is to lay Peter out underneath him on the lumpy backseat and reduce him to a writhing mess. He's had it with jerking off in dirty rest stop bathrooms when he's had a real, solid body next to him this whole time keen on fulfilling all of his sexual fantasies and then some. He can only imagine what Peter gets like when he's turned on, animalistic and determined, and Stiles never knew he had such a fetish for being manhandled, but then Peter fists him by the hair and kisses him and oh, yes, this is better than the first time.  
  
Peter kisses like it's his last kiss, with teeth and tongue and demanding fingers fumbling with the waistband of Stiles' jeans. He's still wearing all his clothes, and it's much too hot for clothes, so Stiles makes it his mission to attempt to multitask between keeping up with the assault of Peter's tongue against his own and unbuttoning his pants. His hands brush Peter's cock, tented against his boxers, and wonders when he started thinking about dicks over boobs. It must've happened out in the country a few weeks ago, or days, or maybe months, because Stiles has lost track of how long they've been out here just the two of them.  
  
"Why do we even need condoms," Stiles demands when Peter finally pulls back to move his mouth to Stiles' neck, where he swears he feels a brush of claws before it's blunt nails scratching over the sensitive skin of his shoulders. "You're a werewolf, you can't give me any diseases."  
  
"You want to feel me inside of you," Peter mumbles against his ear where his tongue is making fast work of licking up his earlobe. Stiles feels a full body shiver course through him and he finds purchase on Peter's hips for support. He never knew his ear was such sensitive territory and his eyes flutter shut while Peter's teeth sink into the soft tendons on his neck.  
  
"What?" Stiles pants, feeling already mildly incoherent as his hands graze over the bare skin of Peter's thighs, hot under his touch.  
  
"You don't want a condom," Peter drawls while he grinds his hips down into Stiles. His responding grin to Stiles' groans at the sensations is positively wolfish. "Because you want to feel me come inside you. You want to feel my cock with nothing in the way."  
  
"Oh my god, just take your clothes off," Stiles hisses, body overheating at Peter's words alone. He would be flipping them over right now if he thought that Peter would let him, shucking off his pants and socks faster than humanly possible. Whether it's Peter or the thrill of sex, something wild has been released inside him, urging him to bite and scratch and give as good as he gets. "Let me touch you."  
  
"I wouldn't dare stop you," Peter practically purrs above him, yanking off his own shirt when he starts to notice exactly how desperate Stiles is about getting off in this dirty backseat. Stiles touches, his fingers roaming over defined skin and a firm chest while Peter retaliates by dragging his nails down his stomach and pinching his left nipple, which Stiles thinks is definitely playing dirty. He sees the true wolf come out here, laying claim and doing so none-too-gently as Peter cages him in with his arms and sucks down the path of his navel. Stiles tangles his fingers in his hair and tries to stay conscious when Peter tugs his pants and boxers down in one pull and takes his cock into his mouth without warning.  
  
The feeling is heavenly, which is awfully ironic considering he's got a perfectly evil man kneeling between his legs when he hollows his cheeks, sucks Stiles into his mouth, and pulls back after one teasing second. Stiles throws his head back, hits the car door, and curses into the night. Peter chuckles and takes him back into his mouth, the tongue flat against the underside of Stiles' erection easing moans from Stiles' mouth while his finger starts exploring further. Peter's tongue follows, releasing the head of Stiles' dick again, and just when he thinks it can't get any better there's a tongue licking circles around his puckered hole and the warm, wet sensation pushes Stiles off a proverbial cliff that gets him one step closer to coming before he should. He bucks into the onslaught of feelings, from the hand pumping his length to the tongue prodding into his entrance, and Peter takes all the demanding pushes of his hips in stride and grips his thighs hard enough to bruise. There will be mottled fingerprints on his pelvis for days, purpled reminders of how it felt to have Peter rim him right there in his car, and suddenly all he wants is fingers in his ass and Peter's cock in his hands.  
  
But Peter doesn't let him touch, pushing back his knees and licking in deeper while Stiles all but sobs into the seat and fists Peter's hair as encouragement. Peter doesn't mind the strain of the hair pulling, responding in kind by squeezing the base of his cock and retreating his mouth only to slide in a finger that goes easily with the slickness of saliva. Stiles feels his breath hitch in his throat and feels the twinge of discomfort, clenching down on Peter's finger and ignoring the way Peter's throat practically rumbles in anticipation at the feeling.  
  
"Lube," Stiles chokes out. "Tell me you bought lube too."  
  
Peter reappears from in between Stiles' legs to grab him by the neck and reel him in for another kiss, and Stiles hopes to god it's an affirmation. The finger slips out of his hole as Peter clambers to the front, still in his pants, which is a crime, really, and pops open the glove box. There, lying innocently by the unopened box of condoms, is a tube of lubrication Stiles never noticed. It looks like a gift from the lord right now, and Stiles wastes no time in yanking Peter back to the backseat and all but ripping his pants off to get his own fair share of heavy petting in.  
  
Peter gets with the program and helps Stiles fumble to get rid of his underwear in record time, leaving Peter's cock open for display. For a second Stiles does little but lick his lips and take in the sight of a man other than himself one hundred percent in the nude, cock leaking and curling toward Peter's belly like it's practically begging for Stiles to touch it, which he does. It feels nothing like his own, length and weight in his hand completely foreign and oddly arousing when he strokes it experimentally a few times and watches Peter's stomach flex and his mouth let loose a myriad of sinful noises as motivation to continue.  
  
He wants to do all kinds of things, more things than his own self-restraint and the amount of available room in his car will let him, like taste Peter for himself and then kiss him for hours with increasing fervor, but he knows that Peter has other plans, plans that involve him pounding against his prostate a few times before he's even allowed to come. Stiles doesn't actually protest.  
  
He pushes Peter against the window and pumps him at a steady pace while marking up his neck with spots that he knows will fade despite all his hard effort to bite and nip with his teeth, and Peter takes advantage of their position to continue his work with Stiles. His hand slithers between their bodies after arching his chest against Stiles' mouth and finds his entrance, two fingers coated with lube working their way into his hole. It's still not comfortable, even with his fingers slippery inside of him, but Stiles is so high-strung everything feels like tantalizing touches bringing him that much closer to the edge. He ruts against his fingers, silently demanding another, and Peter complies until there's three fingers stretching him brutally open at a pace that matches the frantic rhythm Stiles has developing on Peter's cock. A part of him feels like the windows should be fogging up right about now.  
  
They're both moaning, and Stiles can't tell apart their groans until Peter slams him down against the seat with what has to be supernatural strength and looks down at him like he's the dessert he's been waiting years to devour, eyes raking down his kiss-swollen lips to his hard cock and prepared entrance. He pushes at Stiles' knees again and doesn't even wait before he lubes himself up and pushes in with one hard thrust, his eyes flashing blue before they shut in pleasure. It hurts, a sting of intrusion that Stiles fully expected, but it's mingling with a pleasure that blends with the pain to make Stiles moan for more. He never would've expected this when he first complained about needing to get away, not the endless road trip with Peter and not losing his virginity to him in the backseat. There isn't anything about Peter that reminds him of sweet, soft girls, his hands demanding and his movements uncontrolled as he pulls out and builds up an abusing rhythm that has Stiles scrabbling for purchase on the seat's fabric.  
  
It's good, really good, and he already knows he'll wake up with an ache in his ass that'll leave him satisfied like when his muscles are sore after a work out and bruises on his hips as marks of Peter's possessiveness. Peter's relentless in his thrusts, cock nudging his prostate and causing colors to explode behind Stiles' eyes with every snap of his hips, sweat gathering on his forehead and his throat raw from the moans he can't help from falling out. He never knew that this is what pain and pleasure felt like together, an intoxicating blend that makes Stiles sure that his hand will never be enough to get him off again, the sight of Peter's face right before he comes ingrained in his memory forever.  
  
Stiles comes first when Peter touches his cock, nothing but a tight grip that electrifies the feeling of Peter fucking him in earnest, and Peter's rhythm loses all sense of finesse when Stiles finishes with a broken cry, turning hard and fast while he grunts alongside his thrusts. It's sensitive and rough after Stiles has come, but Peter doesn't relent until he comes with a groan that Stiles will replay in his head like a broken record each time he masturbates from now on, and Peter collapses on top of him as dead weight when he finishes.  
  
It takes Stiles five minutes just to get his breath back in his lungs, and it takes Peter seven to pull out and reach between their bodies to finger at Stiles' swollen hole where his come is gathering. It's sticky like the come cooling on Stiles' stomach, a reminder of exactly how hard he just came, and it isn't until he blinks away the stars of his euphoria that he starts to feel the discomfort of a grown man splayed on top of him in a tiny backseat.  
  
It's weird, because he doesn't feel regret. A part of him almost expected it, that after the rush of hormones was over he'd be beating himself up over letting Peter Hale help him reach his orgasm, but he feels sleepy and content and pleasantly warm. There's a smell of sex in the air that's mingling with the natural scent of trees and burnt asphalt, and Stiles is pretty sure this is how all summer nights should be spent.  
  
"That was good," Stiles murmurs, amazed at how breathless his lungs still feel. Peter grabs Stiles' sweatshirt, wipes the come off of Stiles' chest, and balls it up to toss into the foot room. "Dude! I liked that sweatshirt."  
  
"We'll wash it," Peter grumbles, but he sounds sated and loose-limbed just like Stiles, so Stiles lets this one slide and closes his eyes.  
  
\--  
  
As it turns out, the backseat of a Jeep is not built for two people.  
  
Stiles wakes up with an uncomfortable drying wetness between his legs he quickly recognizes as Peter's lingering come, every inch of his skin stinking of sweat, and Peter halfway draped into the foot room. A few birds are chirping merrily in the trees and the summer heat is settling into the car as the morning sun starts sizzling on the roof, and even though Stiles has plans to get up and turn the air conditioner on, Peter stirs awake right after Stiles sits up and the two of them don't leave the backseat until two blowjobs later.  
  
Peter's facial expressions are ten times easier to appreciate in the light of the morning, and Stiles may or may not come twice in under an hour.  
  
The joy of youth.  
  
\--  
  
They stop for McDonalds ice cream two days later, and they're both sitting there in the parking lot watching the cars dart by on the highway while they lick their cones with Peter's hand casually on Stiles' leg when he realizes that this is it for them.  
  
"Things aren't going to be like this when we get home," Stiles mumbles around his scoop of ice cream. It's chocolate, clearly the best flavor, and next to him Peter is nursing a cone of caramel cappuccino ice cream with nuts like it's the most common flavor on the menu.  
  
Peter's hand shifts on his leg, his fingers sliding to his inner thigh where the seam of his jeans sit. Peter loves to tease him, loves to see Stiles squirm from just a few pets of his hand, and it doesn't matter how convincing Peter's fingers are, he will not die giving road head. The fact that the possibility even crosses his mind is baffling to him, not to mention that Peter's hand resting on his lap is as comforting and commonplace as it is. It's the sort of thing Stiles knows they can't make routine outside of this Jeep. It makes him feel like all he wants to do is turn around and drive away from Beacon Hills, where he knows that Peter will have pack responsibilities and Stiles will have obligations to hate the guy for what he did. This safe haven, the sanctuary that his car and the road have created where the mistakes don't exist anymore, he can't imagine leaving it. It doesn't sound nearly as peaceful.  
  
"No, they won't," Peter admits. "But they can be if you leave your window unlocked."  
  
Stiles looks over at Peter and catches sight of a devilish smirk that vanishes after a nanosecond. He feels laughter tumbling out of his throat even if the amount of people that regularly refuse to use the front door of his house is starting to exceed an acceptable amount. The acceptable amount being zero.  
  
"What's wrong with the front door?"  
  
"Not exactly keen on running into the sheriff on the way to your room," Peter fixes him with a look like it's obvious. Stiles doesn't exactly want to witness that scenario either, especially if Peter's on his merry way up the stairs to deflower him.  
  
He sits there, feeling lick after lick melt on his tongue and cool his mouth, and wonders why he chases complications in his life like simplicity is for weaklings.  
  
Then, when they're driving again, Peter leans over to plant a biting kiss on his mouth that tastes like caramel until a truck honks at them, and Stiles thinks that maybe it isn't that complicated after all.  
  
\--  
  
They arrive in Beacon Hills at night, and that's all Stiles can say for what time it is. He doesn't know what day and is only vaguely certain that it's still June. It feels like the years have gone by on the road, just him and Peter and a steering wheel deciding their fate, but somehow they're back in the present. Stiles feels it like a stinging slap to the face when he first sees the "Welcome to Beacon Hills" sign standing in the dirt, and everything piles back on his shoulders, like the fact that Peter's technically still a sociopath and Scott's going to kill him for flying off the map without a word for so long and his father probably deviated from sticking to healthy food while he was gone.  
  
Stiles knew it had to end eventually, the pile of dirty laundry in the backseat only one of many signals that he can't escape home forever. He doesn't even know where to drop Peter off, whether it be the middle of the woods or the Hale house where he can practically mentally envision Derek standing sentinel as if waiting for Peter to finally show up so he can chew him up and check Stiles for bite marks and other abuse. He ends up driving past the preserve, going all the way to his own home where he's sure Peter can slink off through the woods and sleep under a bed of moss if he so pleases.  
  
The Jeep grumbles up the gravel of his driveway after midnight, but Stiles isn't tired. Peter's presence feels heavy and final beside him, like the spell will be broken the moment he leaves the car. He looks over at Peter, who smirks at him like there's more to come, and goes for the door handle like that's that. A goodbye would feel too loaded anyway.  
  
"Wait," Stiles says when he's halfway out the car. "I'll leave my window unlocked."  
  
Peter smiles like Christmas has come early, a pleased quirk of his lips. "I'll take you up on that promise, Stiles."  
  
And as it turns out, he does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Feet on the Dash [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9000169) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton), [SomethingIncorporeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal)




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